


Surrealism

by Lee123



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentions of medication, Post-Canon, Self-Reflection, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lee123/pseuds/Lee123
Summary: “Life is still completely surreal, even with the lack of magic...”Simon reflects on his life after Watford, the future ahead of him, and how it all seems like a fantasy.





	Surrealism

**Author's Note:**

> I know I promised an Ari and Dante work, but this came to me one day and I had to post it! It’s pretty short and sweet and Simon’s voice is really easy for me to reach, so I think this one is really good! I hope you guys enjoy it!!

Life is still completely surreal, even with the lack of magic.

I got my wings removed. One popped out while I was meeting with a professor, and he fainted, and that’s when I decided that it was time for them to go. It’s not like I used them to travel, and after the novelty wore off they became a nuisance. They were the last thing I had to connect me to my past, but I still have Penny and Baz, some of the most powerful mages in our year, so I suppose that’s enough.

Baz begged me not to. I know he’s grown attached to the tail, but other than that, they’re in his way too. When we sleep, when I try to sit in his lap, when we- well, I’ll spare the details. But I’m always on my back, and there’s a kink in my neck because of it.

Penny goes to Oxford. I don’t know why she insists on staying in London. I mean, I understand not wanting to stay with Baz’s parents, no matter how much he insists that it’s okay. Instead, she takes the train that I do, and it takes her and hour and a half every day, but she always comes home and brings food, so I can’t complain.

I go to some place called Watford University (not to be confused with Watford School for Magicks; two totally different places). It turns out magic attracts me, as most of my professors and peers are mages themselves. I didn’t even know that the school was notorious for mages worldwide. Of course, the class I’m failing is taught by a Normal, and when I talked to him about it Penny’s spell wore off, but I’ve already told that story.

Baz graduated early from his school, and I’m infinitely jealous. Penny’s on time to graduate, and me- well, I’m probably stuck another year. But I don’t mind. It’s my own fault for choosing a major as late as I did.  
  
After Baz finished his degrees in political science and economics _and_ secured himself a position on the board of Old Families, he called a meeting with them and the Coven, which no one was optimistic about. But with his connections and obligations to both sides (he’s a Pitch, but he’s fairly Liberal, and also engaged to the former Mage’s heir), and with Penny’s mum (who thinks Baz is one of the smartest kids she’s ever met) backing him, he’s managed to get them to form a Magickal board- equal parts Old Family and Coven, and he and the Headmistress as some sort of mediators. It was a genius idea, really. He was right when he said the war was pointless, and while their meetings are mostly the two sides arguing while Baz and the Bunce’s clench their temples, he thinks they’re getting somewhere.

Baz proposed to me about two and a half weeks before our three year anniversary.

He took me back to the woods where we first kissed (the one we burnt to the ground). It turns out there’s a clearing about half a mile in, with a lake and unscathed grass surrounding it.

It was his early Christmas present to me. He said he was gonna build us a house that we can live in as our lives are settling down, and if they stayed in England, he’d buy one for Micah and Penny too (with the condition that he doesn’t buy either of them another gift for three years).

It was the grandest, biggest gesture anyone has ever made towards me, and the most romantic. I cried, but that’s because my meds make me emotional.

On the way back to the main road, we walked past the patch which was still affected by the fire. When I turned around to tell him that something was sprouting between the burnt trees, he was on one knee. And well...it’s obvious what happened next.

“Baz. W-what are you...” He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I...I had a speech prepared....but it seems as though I’ve completely forgot it.” I stood there gaping at him like an idiot (not a rare occurrence) and he stayed looking up at me (rather, my knees) with a velvet box in his hand. “But...I think you know...”

“Say it.” I said, gathering myself, my hands still shaking. “I want...I want to hear you say it.”

He took a deep breath and opened the box. If my jaw could’ve dropped lower, it would have.

“Simon, I... Aleister Crowley.....” his head sunk and I watched as his hair fell around his face. “It would make me...I would be so... _Simon_...Will you...”

“Christ, Baz, stop,” I said after his long pause. Then I started crying again. I cried a lot that day. “Stop it. You look pathetic.” He looked up at me, horrified. “No, I mean- yes.” I started chuckling. “Yes, I’ll marry you, you bloody oaf.”

And well, that was it. Then he picked me up and hugged me and we kissed (he kissed me that day until I was dizzy and dazed) (his kisses always make me dizzy and dazed) and all the other things you do when you promise to spend the rest of your life with the person you love most. Still in the forest, of course. I begged him to get us a hotel room, because I believed Penny may be home and I didn’t want to have to just look at Baz for two hours while lightning bolts of energy passes between us. He obliged, of course. And we stayed for an entire day.

And now everything is well. I’ve finally picked out a tuxedo, and we have our guest list prepared. Agatha agreed to come all the way from California, and is even bringing her new girlfriend (the one I convinced Agatha to talk to). (Funny how we’re both gay now.)

I have friends from uni (Lola, Darren, both American, and Ra'naa, who’s name I can’t say because I’m a White idiot, so I call her Ran) and we hang out and drink and go to parties and it’s wonderful and new and I feel like I belong somewhere other than attached to Penny’s side. Even though I’ll always be there because Penny is most likely my (platonic) soulmate.

Baz and the Magickal Board are finally getting things done instead of arguing for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday. He’s in line to become Watford’s next Headmaster, which he would never admit to anyone but me, but he’s wanted that position since he was three. And we go on dates constantly. And eat with his family. And sometimes we babysit his siblings, who I love. Mordelia, the oldest and Baz’s favorite, Rosalina and Josephina, the twins (both five, and straight out of The Shining), Peter, my personal favorite (other than Baz) (Though, Peter is infinitely sweeter than Baz), and the newest one, Sebastian. Baz and I spend our other times together arguing and wrestling and cooking and holding hands and making love and every other domestic thing that couples do, except with a little more magic.

And though this is never what I imagined for myself- the flat, and the wings, and the (vampire) boyfriend, the explicit normalcy of it all- I can’t fathom how it must be for Baz.

Because he says it all the time, that he absolutely can’t believe that his life turned out the way it did, and until now, when he buries his face into the crook of my neck and presses his lips into my collar bone- Until just now I never realized how surreal this must be to him.

I mean, the guy hasn’t had an easy life. And none of us have really, but Baz even more so. His father is constantly disappointed in him, and he watched his mum die when he was five as he died (half died) himself. He has to deal with _me_ every day-and that’s a burden for everyone, even myself (though I guess he put that on himself)-and with the fact that his family wanted me dead and my ‘family’ or whatever I had of the sort wanted _him_ dead, and _I_ wanted him dead, or at least, I thought I did-and he never wanted me dead. He’s always wanted what we have now and I can’t imagine what this must mean for him.

For every single thing he’d been prepared to witness, from my death or his own (I’m not sure which one he wanted more-probably the latter), how his only choices were to die or become the murderer everyone expected him to be, and he even chose to betray what he learned for his whole life to be prepared for death and not even make it to uni-

I can’t imagine that this is what he ever thought he’d get. It makes my heart swell for him. To imagine how that must feel- to get the best case scenario when you had lost all hope of such an obscure concept. To save the day and get the boy at the end of it all, without a speck of blood on his hands (despite how much he may have wanted some). To get me and Penny in an endlessly domestic and normal flat, where we argue about who does the dishes and beg Penny’s mum to pay the rent when we’re short on money. Where I make food the normal way, and Penny and I lick bowls clean to reduce the amount of soap used that night. Where we sling flour and water at each other, and fight over who gets the most comfortable side of the couch and what movie we watch. Where Penny kisses my cheek before we say goodnight, and Baz leads me into our room by my hand and wraps himself around me when we lay down. Or cradles my face in his hands and stares at me like I’m the greatest treasure in his life, then tells me so, and my response is to blush and tell him to shut up because he’s making me soft and I’m too tired to be sentimental.

For him to get the ending he thought he could never have, and for me to get the ending I never knew I needed.

For us to come out slightly scathed, but alive. And happy. It’s more than I ever thought I deserved.

And of course Baz feels the same way. But he deserves everything he wants (and probably has the money to get it).

But it doesn’t matter if I deserve it. Because I have it. It’s the life I’m leading, the one I’m stuck with.

“Go to bed, Snow.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s gonna be your last name in a few months, you twat.”

“ _Our_ last name.”

“Simon Snow Grimm-Pitch. Sounds posh.”

“You’re marrying me. It must be posh.”

“Fair.”

I thank any and all listening deities that this- that _he_ \- is what I’m stuck with. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again for reading! I always try to respond to comments so!!! My ig is @leetrash and my tumblr is @firelordlee but I’m never on there so I wouldn’t even try.


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